Gone, Gone, Gone!   I'm free of vertigo and up and runnin' again!

Betty Reid Soskin: A World War II Homefront History

August 16, 2015 - 1:30pm-4:00pm 

Central Library Community Meeting Room

Come hear Betty Reid Soskin recall Richmond and the Bay Area during World War II.  This exceptional speaker and homefront hero will show a short movie of Richmond during the years 1942-1945 and follow it up with an inspiring talk that you must experience.  Betty is currently a park ranger at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Park in Richmond, and was once employed in the Richmond shipyards during World War II.  Her talk will move you.

Event Category: 

Movie, Just for fun, Special

I'm also back at the wheel, and "Old" will just have to take a number and wait in line.

Just showered and dressed for a presentation at the Berkeley Main Library at 1:30 this afternoon, and expect to see old friends in that audience.  Having lived in Berkeley for many years, I've left a mark on it as we all do in those places where we've shared lives -- and it surely has left its mark on me.  I never thought I'd be happy living anywhere else, but I'm firmly planted now in Richmond, and think of the city as home.  But maybe home is wherever the heart is at any moment in time.  If so, I've had many, and this is only the latest version.

That 20 years in the suburbs -- painful though it was at times -- probably provided the greatest and deepest growth, and friends with whom those years were shared left their mark on my life as in no other period.  Strange.  Maybe that was the take-away in exchange for the confidence and security acquired as the result.  The pain may have been well worth it.  I'm still spinning off those years.  They've given me the needed balance to continue building on the foundation provided by the early years of woman-building that started when I was six, with Papa George as mentor.

These recent years of connecting the dots and knitting together decades of experiences -- having retained enough accumulated wisdom to articulate that -- is something I could never have anticipated.

But then, maybe that book has been thoughtfully written, and I've not yet discovered it ... .  

Well, that was short-lived ... .

Saw the neurologist today.  He administered the magical Epply maneuver and, voila!  Dizziness disappeared in one fell swoop!

It could not have been more dramatic had the genie stepped out of that bottle and chanted his magic oath.  The cure was immediate.  It took less than 10 minutes, and the world stopped spinning and I came in for a landing.  "Sleep with 3 pillows tonight; about a thirty degree lift to your head, and ... .  " ... If there is any further dizziness, give me a call," says the genie.

I'm not going to let myself wonder why this wasn't done 3 months ago ... but we won't go there. 

Blood pressure higher than ever, but it was taken after I'd been through a wild ride through rush hour traffic to the Oakland Medical Center -- and I'm the quintessential passenger-seat-driver -- and it was horrendous!  My son did the honors, but only with invisible help from my imaginary brake pedal.  We were late for my appointment -- and I hate being late -- so it was a perfect storm.

Blood pressure was off the charts upon arrival, and when it was taken again when the doctor had completed his work, it was one point higher!

On the drive home, I was in no better shape, but now I'm aware of an elevated score, so I'm ready to cash in and give up the ghost.  Even silently considered retirement ... .

Within an hour after arriving home my primary physician called to inquire about how my appointment had gone --he was aware of the (alarming) rise in my pressure, and asked me to come in tomorrow at eleven to have it taken again.

I told him that I would need to arrange for a ride (remember, he'd ordered me to give up driving), and you can imagine my surprise when he answered, "... you can drive yourself.  Now that the vertigo and dizziness have been taken care of, there's no reason why you can't do so."

Go figure.

So, I guess I've been reprieved until further notice, and will return to work on Tuesday as planned.

Now I need to seek out a treatment for whiplash!

A life changer, maybe?

After 3 months of persistent fluctuating blood pressure, and dizziness caused by the concussion suffered in May, I'm having to face the fact that -- while not yet being advised to retire or to cut back on my work schedule by my doctor -- I have been advised not to drive until further notice.

Tomorrow I will see the neurologist for answers to just what is causing continuing vertigo.  Much will depend upon her findings.

These last two weeks have been spent resting, but on Sunday afternoon I will do my presentation at the Berkeley Main Library.  I'll have a driver.  I'm looking forward to getting back in gear, and on Tuesday will return to my regular 5 day/wk work schedule.

I suppose I should be getting ready to face that "...whatever are we going go do with the old lady" conversation.  Whenever I've asked my supervisors if it's time ...  up 'til now, it has always been, "not yet, Betty."

But the handwriting may be showing up on the wall, though dimly ... .

I've always wondered if I would know when it's time to leave the stage ... maybe I'm beginning to suspect ... .

Whenever the time comes, it will be in the middle of my movie.
 

Caught enough of Krasny's Forum show this morning to have it dominate my thoughts over the past hour ... .

The subject was the situation in Ferguson as those old wounds have been reopened, and the violence returned.

Just last night I watched coverage on CNN and learned of the continuing "ticketing for profit" practices that are still going on, adding to the festering of those old wounds.  But I also noticed the presence of a diversity of races on those streets and was reminded ... .

One of the most valuable lessons learned during the earlier versions of the Civil Rights struggles was -- I suppose because I was experiencing those struggles from the position of a middle class black living among enlightened white liberals in an otherwise hostile white community -- down through history there has always been good folks tryin' to get it right, and often at the risk of their own lives.

 One might start with the Quakers,  abolitionists, and John Brown.

In this morning's discussion there was a representative of Black Lives Matter -- the current version of the struggle -- and she was articulate, and clearly disheartened by the lack of progress being shown in the clashes between the black community and the police.  She defended the actions at the Bernie Sanders rally, and made the point that in the aftermath he made his first clear statements on the state of the persistent racial problems in the nation.  Attorney Eva Patterson, one of my all-times heroes, was her clear and present -- wise and gracious self -- giving voice to the voiceless.

The call-ins that joined the debate had one thing in common.  They were from people sympathetic to the cause of justice, but clearly expressing concern that the wrong tactics were being used by the Movement ("... why Bernie Sanders, he's one of the good guys'), and suggestions for how it should be done.  May I suggest that all responses -- if coming from a place of moral intent -- are needed.   There is not one correct way to respond to unreasonable and crippling injustices.  Corrective measures have many faces, and will draw many responses depending upon countless variables.

Maybe it's my age, but I find that my eyes are ever searching the television coverage for the racial makeup of the street demonstrations.  I see hope in the fact that the diversity is growing, and that here are the folks who, historically, have always been "tryin' to get it right," and in the chaos there is a lot of democracy being built.  There always is at such times.

Every generation has to rebuild democracy in its day.  We have a constitutionally-protected right to be wrong.  We also have a constitutionally-protected right to protest those wrongs in the belief that what is right will prevail.

Democracy is a process, and every citizen has the right and responsibility to participate in that
process in order to actualize it and keep it vibrant for the next generation.

That can be ugly at times if we neglect our duty to maintain an informed electorate, but it is the price we pay for freedom.

Building and keeping a coalition of those "tryin' to get it right" is of critical importance.  Our black lives may well depend upon it.

We cannot do it alone.  It is an American problem fueled by white supremacy, but mistakenly seen as a problem based purely in black inadequacy and criminality.  Until we recognize it for what it is, we'll continue to fail to find answers.

If my Sixties experiences have any validity at all, then I have to believe that those racially-diverse street demonstrators are doing the right thing by simply being there together showing that Black Lives Matter for the nation and the world to see.

Call came from the editor of a publication in which my life story will be included in September  ... .

... she wanted to fact-check a few things, and her first question was -- "I was a bag lady for the Black Panthers!"  Of course I said, yes, that I'd said that (probably in the Bancroft Library oral history at the university), and it was technically true, but didn't come close to telling the whole story.

What was being referred to was the fact that I raised funds among my friends and church members in order to help to fund the work of the Panthers, and delivered them to Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver at their San Francisco apartment on Oak Street.  What I did not say was that I'd been driven there by our late  Rev. Aron Gilmartin, pastor of the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church.  He didn't hesitate picking me up in his little Volkswagen to make the delivery.  That was life in the Sixties.  You were either a part of the problem or a part of the solution, and we took that very seriously.  I'd drive into the city to march with the Panthers on the Alameda County courthouse steps many a day in order to fulfill that self-imposed obligation.

This was in my pretty little brown Doris Day with the faux wood-paneled station wagon period, and I faithfully lived up to the image.

I'd decided that -- though I was living in the suburbs at the time -- far away from the action -- with the Oakland hills dividing the flat lands of the inner city from the "(sur)real" world, there was a role to be played by the black middle class (of which there were few where we lived).  White liberals who were stirred by the struggle as it was being played out on the streets of the Greater Bay Area, and with whom I had credibility, were asking me for information about what was going on beyond the hills, and as long as that was true I needed to be informed.  I had access into the Movement, and they didn't.  I saw it as my duty to drive to where the action was in order to tap into the power that I had access to where I was.  It was those same great friends and allies who would support me through the next decade -- sometimes at the national level.  We were all being educated through my involvement.  It was a heady time, and some of the lessons learned in those years are what fuels my work today.

by Dorian Reid - 8/8/2015

No one was going to grant power to a black man standing on the corner with a brick in his hand, but I was choking on it.   I could be a conduit to power, and I knew it. At that time some of my friends were among the most effective of those in political leadership.  The mayor of the town, Doug Page, was a member of my church, and I could probably have parked my car on the City Hall lawn and not been ticketed.

And,  I'm probably living proof that the Black Panthers were, at heart, non-violent.

I recall one of those demonstrations when -- dressed in my beige pleated skirt with cashmere sweater with pearls and tawny hip-length suede jacket --  I was marching along passionately while loudly yelling, "Free Huey Newton!" with the rest of the crowd when the chant turned unexpectedly into, "Off the Pigs!  Off the Pigs!"  Appalled, I marched straight up to the front of the demonstration in my spiffy alligator pumps to where some of the leaders were gathered and loudly announced, ".. if you don't make them stop yelling those awful words right this instant,  I'm going to leave and never come back!"  That someone didn't make quick work of me right on the spot showed unbelievable restraint on the part of the black-leather-jacketed brothas, and proof that those awesome Black Panthers were not without a sense of humor!

From that day forward I figured that my code name in the Black Revolution should have been Chicken Little!


... but as we can surely see, I've evolved.

note:  ... and apparently Dorian is also evolving.  She is showing political awareness that must have been acquired over the years.  Stephen Sondheim was right, "Children will listen."  These sketches turned up in the National Arts and Disabilities (NIAD) show today, to serve as a reminder of those days. For those new to my writings, Dorrie is my mentally-retarded daughter.

So much is happening  ...

First, received an email from cousin Paul Charbonnet this week that connected with recent events in an unexpected way.

I suspect that he was half joking, but underneath it fit in nicely with a new avenue of thought that's opened up due to a number of proposals that I've been considering of late.

Several filmmakers have contacted me inquiring about the possibility of our entering into negotiations for filming my life story.

At first I considered the inquiries frivolous, and after allowing the ego satisfaction of having anyone consider my story important enough for documenting -- I'd unceremoniously send them to the trash without much further thought.

Yet over past weeks I've begun to give that some serious thought, and once that happened -- all bets were off, and I'm now really beginning to look at my life through a wider lens.

Paul's email announced that he'd been in touch with the Diocese of New Orleans about the possible restoration and upkeep of Amable's tomb (1790-1839), and that he'd learned that -- for a fee -- that could be arranged.  I'd suggested in a recent email exchange that I might be interested in sending out word to my wing of the Charbonnet family to see if we could share the cost in order to honor our earliest ancestor's place in our creation.

Paul tells me that while he is not a direct descendant of our ancestor-in-common  (his wing remained white while mine crossed over through Amable's love, Melite Beaulieu -- a mulatto slave with whom he fathered my great-grandfather, Dorson) -- I am, and am therefore eligible to be interred in that tomb along with him, and his 6 year-old daughter, Emma.

Paul felt that this could make a fine and appropriate ending to our great southern American family epic, but I've got a commitment to pay off a 30 year mortgage, and I plan to honor that fully before leaving this dimension.  I'm figuring that I've got at least 15 more years before that gets done.  Let's see, next month I'll be 94 ... .

... and I've lived almost my entire life on the Left Coast, and someone who remained in New Orleans over the centuries should have that honor.

But it's worthy of an Isabel Allende novel, wouldn't you think?

Unfortunately, there was a post I'd written having to do with the persistent problem of black poverty -- and I somehow trashed it without intending to.

May try to rewrite it at some point, but as is the case most times -- once written I've used up all the energy and emotion that comes with remembering -- and I have nothing left to say ...

at least until someone or something reminds me of the subject at some later time.

So saying -- let's just move on. 

A woman in the front row of my audience yesterday brought back a memory during the few minutes before my mike was turned on ... .

She leaned in to ask in a whisper if I remembered her friend,  John Watkins.  Thought for a moment and the image of a small boy rose in my mind.  "Of course."  He was one of the Watkins twins  -- sons of Jack and Eleanor Watkins, the first black family to move into the Valley back in the Fifties.  They preceded our arrival by a few years.  Their home was in another area, I never knew where that was, but the lovely pioneering Watkins family and mine had been friends for many years back in Oakland; My older sister, Marjorie, and their father Jack's younger sister had been best friends.

I recalled the story told by my friend, Dorothy Fibush, of Lafayette:

When the Watkins twins were graduating and everyone was preparing for the prom, her friends had been training their daughters for weeks for the evening by giving them ways to respond when the twins asked them to dance (wouldn't want rejection to be rude, you know.  There are polite and humane ways to refuse).

That evening when the girls returned home from the dance their mothers asked how they'd handled the awkwardness.

Daughters answered,

"They didn't ask us!"

Last night as I was reviewing my day against closed eyes at rest..

... I knew what it was that I wanted to explore with that interesting group.  It was that I'd discovered long ago that it's the givers who grow.

Learned that just before leaving the University of California system back in the 70's, where I was coordinating the Four H programs for the State.  That program was one of the long time offerings through the Department of Agriculture, and was being conducted out of the University of California statewide offices in Berkeley.  I didn't last long.  If I were to choose one area of failure in my work career it would surely be that position. 

The Four H programs were created long ago at a time when the nation's farming community was where poverty was most visible.  It was in order to try to draw that community into the educational system that the original Land Grant colleges were formed, and Four H programs were used to attract children and their families into considering college educations and studying for advance degrees.

Of course, by the time I was hired as a 4H program representative, California's farms were nearly all  giant agribusinesses, and the State's small farms had all but vanished.  The children of the farming community were by then from some of the state's most affluent families.  There were private planes in many barns originally built for cows.

I managed two state conferences before I crashed and burned -- one at the State Fair in Sacramento and another on the University of California campus at Santa Barbara.

One day I found myself in a staff meeting where the subject under discussion was how to bring the children of farm workers into 4H programs.  For that meeting there were several Latino community organizers brought in from the San Joaquin Valley farm worker community to participate in the planning.

I was horrified to discover that the group was planning to introduce gardening projects for farm workers kids.  I'm not sure where it came from, but I saw this as comparable to bringing little African American children into programs where they'd learn to pick cotton as recreation!  No one else could see what I was so appalled by.  My communications skill left a lot to be desired at that point.

I tried to explain by presenting an alternative that went over like a lead balloon! This was after I'd seen a flyer that was being prepared for distribution for the Santa Barbara teen conference. It was advertising workshops bearing the titles listed below (fortunately I found a copy of this flyer in my files). 

The list reads:

Growing up Asian
Growing up Black
Growing up in a Broken Home
Growing up Chicano
Growing up Delinquent
Growing up Handicapped
Growing up Native American
Growing up Poor

 I fully understood the intent was to create sensitivity in 4-H members, but it missed its mark -- if the rising discomfort that it caused in me was any sign.

Mind you, these are all privileged white teens with nary a child of color among them.  I was appalled by their proposed program.  For me, a workshop entitled "Growing up Racist" might have been more appropriate. The over all feeling was this list, which equated racial identity with behavioral and physical deficits, was stupid and insensitive beyond all measure.

I drafted an alternative program that would have children of the high schools of Merced and Fresno in the San Joaquin Valleys -- where the clusters of Barrios with Latino children needing programs -- I would have those white kids bused in from the towns.  I'd have turned things around so that the children of color would be the teachers by offering an immersion experience in the Spanish language being taught by farm worker youth.  How great would that be?  I would turn the tables, making the non-white kids the givers -- the teachers!

My supervisors were underwhelmed by my "brilliance," and there were no takers.  The Latino organizers simply looked puzzled by my attempt at re-directing to a format where they could not see a role for themselves.  I left the program after several weeks of frustration, and I've never looked back.

But that concept of moving us away from allowing young white people always having their supremacy reinforced through serving as saviors to the under-served, and our kids always seen as being little more than creatures of need is damaging in ways still to be determined.  Maybe this is the stage beyond Peace Corps and AmeriCorp, both great service programs, but both providing growth for the givers and encouraging dependency in the takers.

My hope is that the National Park Service in its wisdom, will one day send white youth onto historically black college campuses on six month details -- where they can have the experience of  being in the minority in an all-black environment, among peers.   That would be a rare experience that white youth should have in their formative years, and unfortunately rarely do.  The park service is well-equipped to provide it. And black youth would be seen as providers, equally as rare.

In an odd way, the Hip Hop community over the past decades has accomplished that quite naturally.  The market doesn't give them credit, but JayZee and Dr. Dre et al are operating in that dimension, and they've gone beyond the possibility of having their talents and marketable skills expropriated.  They've been more than willing to share their expertise with anyone with the interest and the ability to use them.  That generation has moved black culture from being seen merely as raw material with which to enrich American culture, to a place where it's gaining respect and a place of its own in world culture. 

New experience -- met with a group of members of a National Park Service African American leadership staff in a conference call ...

For about an hour we participated in a Q&A that -- hopefully will serve as the beginning of a new edge to grow from.

The format -- with folks scattered from coast-to-coast and me sitting at my desk at the Visitor Center talking into a telephone with the voices filling the room on loudspeaker -- served as a great way to be introduced into the process, but left me somewhat frustrated at the notion of having to give bumper sticker responses to huge questions that required at least being seated in a lounge chair with a glass of sherry in hand, and preferably after sundown.

After cradling the phone I went on dialoguing for hours with them  ...  inside my head, and decided that I would try over the next few days to flesh out some of those questions and provide answers from a deeper place.  Or, maybe I've already answered them and can point those answers out in archived posts that are still available here by using the little white search bar at the top left side of the screen.

There has to be a way to do that -- and I have two weeks of annual leave saved up and won't have to return to work until August 19th -- and can  do a search.  I can't imagine that I haven't written such thoughts over the past several years ... .

At this advanced age, surprisingly little is really new ... .

 ... and I thought that interviewer was calling from New York ...

http://www.business.com.au/betty-reid-soskin-interview-2015-7 

Here's the link to the Business Insider Australia article that appeared today online.   (Copy and paste into your browser.)

The world has shrunken considerably, and I cannot imagine why anyone across the world would be interested in such a mundane story -- or maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture -- but it does seem to be much ado about nothing, or at least very little.

But then in a world where the Kardashians and Donald Trump command more ink than the Pope ... .

After months of acknowledging requests for interviews, photos, etc., then letting the pleasant feelings of being appreciated wash over me --  

... then unceremoniously hitting the trash button in disbelief!

Last week I spent several hours  at the Visitor Center as the subject of a photo shoot that will accompany an upcoming article in the National Parks Conservancy publication; another phone call in which a hopelessly young female voice announced that I'd been selected as someone's favorite ranger and could I answer a few questions for the readers of Pathways? Then a 30-minute telephone interview for a NY Business Insider magazine article.   I've lost count of those requests and now they're hardly recognizable except as items on my Google calendar with little meaningless notations as reminders that fail to remind me of anything due to the speed and urgency my life has taken on of late.

... I've become increasingly aware of the fact that there are out there, artists, writers, documentarians, videographers, poets, artists of various disciplines who have attended my presentations in our little theater over time.  And it's not just the "Polygrip crowd" as one might expect, but a cross-section of the community from near and far. They've become too numerous to ignore, and too insistent to brush off, and their message has finally penetrated through my resistance that the magical "something" needs to be documented.

That thing that happens is clearly not an accident, and has by now become part and parcel of my new "normal".  What I was assuming was a mere temporary "bump" in visitation as the direct result of the NPR Krasny Forum interview is growing with each day, and shows no signs of ebbing any time soon.

My presentations have been raised to 5/week instead of 3, and each event now runs at full tilt with every seat filled.  We're having to pass out numbers in order to not go over the seating capacity as ordered by the fire department.  Next we'll  have to go to a reservation system. Who knew?

And I'm now beginning to realize -- as Earth time is clearly winding down -- that there needs to be a way to capture on film or videotape those elements that make up my American Story since that piece will establish the way I'll be remembered when I'm no longer here.

That is becoming important to consider.  Any false modesty is beginning to fade away, and I'm finally admitting to myself that it matters to me.

My 94th birthday is only one month away.

Wish I hadn't trashed all those requests ... and could now give them the serious thought they deserved ... .

I've enlisted a small group of friends to act as advisers.  We shared a lovely dinner last night to begin to explore next steps.

I'm so grateful to have their counsel at a time when I'm no match for the incoming public attention.

In this final decade the insights come frequently and with the clarity of those that I experienced as a 6 year-old... 

... which should make them suspect, right?

This morning as I listened to the continuing coverage of the senseless and brutal killing of those marines last week, the insights came fast and furiously -- so much so that I almost called in to the station with what seemed so obvious.

They were talking about whether this should be classified as Terrorism or not;  what the motives of the shooter may have been; why ISIS was being so successful recruiting young idealistic foreign and domestic millennials; announcing that the FBI had confiscated his computers for removal and studying of his favorite websites; his family and friend's responses to questioning, etc., and all at great cost to taxpayers and aggravated fear of a deepening threat to our well-being as a nation.

When will we stop allowing the "enemy" to set the agenda; the Terms of Engagement?

By the establishing of a policy of shooting to disable instead of shooting to kill, we could eliminate the motivation of "Lone Wolves" who are deliberately bringing about their own demise in as dramatic a fashion as can be created.  They can count on our participating in the tragedy -- elaborately, in costume,  in armored personnel carriers, in great numbers, in all of the color and style worthy of a legendary Cecil B. DeMille or a D.W. Griffith epic!  These young assassins have the power to set all that off at will and turn our police protectors into executioners.

What would my alternative accomplish?

If announced as policy well in advance of the next strike we would rob these disillusioned young men the passage into oblivion after glory.  Instead of the cost of investigating every minute detail of their former lives and motivations, ambitions and associations, we would have a live perpetrator to question and/or rehabilitate (if possible).

Would this not be a move toward eliminating the ISIS promise of a glorified martyrdom?

If the potential Lone Wolf would have to consider the possibility of imprisonment and/or permanent physical impairment from the violence of the arrest, could this not serve as a deterrent to the recruitment and kill the "romantic" motivation of martyrdom?

May be worth a try.

And -- I thought of calling in to suggest to the experts just how they were on the wrong track, but   then cringed upon remembering how embarrassed I feel for the call-ins while listening to their cockamamie orders to "authority".

But -- after thinking about it over the past few hours -- I'm certain that our marksmen and women are expert enough to shoot the weapons out of the hands of a shooter, if that is what they intend.  I'm wondering why that hasn't been considered before now?

Even given the fury and chaos of such an event and the possibility of the shooter being killed in the melee, in my scenario, that death would be accidental and never intentional.  In a successful arrest the culprit would be incapacitated and never eliminated.  That life is needed in order to have the chance to learn as much as possible about the level of desperation of a generation that may see nothing to live for and little expectation for change in their lifetimes.  These tragic events have one thing in common; they're all intended as suicides. 

Maybe the greatest motivator of all is not ISIS at all, but the never-ending sense of helplessness ... .

.. but then where could we place blame?  

 In thinking back to those compassionate forgiving members of the congregation of Emmanuel A.M.E.... .


In the wake of today's breaking news -- another horrendous shooting -- this time four marines, and the shooter with some others suffering gunshot injuries; again.

I'm thinking of the unbelievably generous forgiving of the heartless murderer whose horrific act a month ago left us all in awe.   I'm struck by something that may be obvious only to me.

 I'm sure that everyone in the nation was grateful to them for setting the tone that would quell any thought of a violent reaction.   We must not ever forget that the assassin's goal was to start a race war by his actions.

Those loving Christians did not ask the death penalty.  Instead they offered him their forgiveness.

Fractious Southerners, black and white, spoke of it passionately throughout the South in the days that followed -- and in their legislature during the debate around the removal of the Battle Flag of the Confederacy. 

Does it not follow that this provides the answer for the divisive questions around the debate over the  possible elimination of the death penalty?  I believe the Supreme Court will tackle that question in the upcoming term.  Our national response to heinous acts of murder is to come at it from the position of an eye for an eye; at least until now.

I'm certain that were I to have to face one who took the life of one of my loved ones,  in the heat of passion I, too, might want revenge -- and aren't we lucky that I don't have the responsibility of making that decision.   Not any of us should, personally, have that responsibility.

But how about our ability to respond as a nation to such crimes in the same humility and compassion as those loving churchgoers? Would not imprisonment for life without the possibility of ever being released be adequate? When will we learn that we only diminish ourselves and our humanity when we continue to kill people to teach that it's wrong to kill people?

I've always had the nagging feeling that, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was granted a state-sanctioned suicide, and went to his execution still defiant, steely-eyed, and without remorse.

I suppose it makes as much sense as fighting wars to defend democracy with a segregated armed forces.

Louis Charbonnet

Learned, sadly, that one of the patriarchal figures of our Charbonnet family passed away yesterday ...

Our fathers were two of the seven brothers of the family.  In addition, there were three sisters. 


Armand was one of the funeral co-directors of the historic Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home in New Orleans.  His brother,  former state senator Louis Charbonnet, and he had partnered for decades in this family enterprise that came into being in the year 1893, as I've been told, having inherited the institution from their parents, Louis and Myrtle, who -- in turn -- inherited it from theirs.  This was the birthplace of the legendary jazz funerals and the memorable "Second Line" processions that are as much a part of the New Orleans story as is Mardi Gras.   The Charbonnet family also owns and operates the picturesque horse & buggy concession that is so much a part of the French Quarter tourist's experience.

Also, in the wake of that sad news, another bit of history turned up that needs addressing, but I'm not certain just what to do with it yet ... .


In December of 2012 I visited the grave of Amable Charbonnet, the ancestor-in-common with (white) cousin, Paul Charbonnet, and recall how he and his wife, Shirley, and I doggedly searched -- row-by-row -- for hours through St. Louis Cemetery #1 hoping to discover his grave.  Paul had researched prior to my arrival to prepare for this by turning up a picture to help identify the grave.  In it the site had a protective ornamental iron fence around it, which (when we found it) had turned to dust with the centuries, which made it difficult to locate.

Amable's grave is shared with his young daughter, Emma, (another of our ancestors) who died in childhood at the age of seven.

The beautiful white marble tomb(?) carried the signature of the Parisian artist who had created it, and was a true work of art.  The years had not been kind, and occasional catastrophic flood waters had contributed to the gradual deterioration.  The grave stands just a stone's throw away from that of the legendary Voodoo Queen Marie Leveau.

Armand and I at the grave of Amable

Paul and I talked briefly about the need somehow to raise the subject with other family members, but the project disappeared into the past and I'd not given it any thought since that great adventure.  (See December 16th, 17th, 2012 in the archives.)

Armand's death brings the subject to the forefront again, as I sent word of his passing to Paul in Baton Rouge.  His response came this morning and included word that he'd continued his research on Amable's place in our shared family history -- that Amable is the earliest ancestor of  our branch of the family, and that -- if that grave is to be restored and cared for -- today's family members might want to share in that responsibility.  Something to think about, cousins.  For those of us who may be able to afford it, of course.  It's probably just a pittance if shared widely enough.   There are surely enough of us -- though scattered widely -- to make it well within the realm of possibility.   Maybe we can ask Louis for some guidance since this would fall in his area of expertise.

When the dust has settled on this most recent loss, I'll contact Armand's daughters and try to figure out just how we might handle the care of this important family landmark -- this mark of our (still traceable) beginnings -- for future generations.

I'm reminded by these recent posts just how deeply embedded are all of our lives in southern history despite a long life of living in the Far West ... .  Small wonder that I'm almost traumatized by events rising from those roots.  It's as if my DNA is disturbed and writhing from generations of assaulting memories, as if it's all been accumulated over many generations, yet lies in some shallow place to be re-awakened by each succeeding unprocessed "insult" to the psyche by continuing unrelenting and unresolved pain.

Could this be true for the entire nation?  Is this what I'm living in microcosm?

Do we not need to bring Truth to that history as a people in order to wrest some kind of relief from the unending misery?  Should we not re-visit those painful places in order to own that history -- so that we can forgive ourselves ... to enable us to move into a more compassionate future ...

... together?

.

Wonder of wonders ...

Increased visitation at the Visitor Center due to the recent NPR Forum interview has made it necessary to add several programs to my weekly schedule, and we'll just have to see how much added stress is manageable.

On Wednesday the first of the newly-scheduled hour-length programs came and when it did I was half-way across town at my desk busily working at park headquarters!  Had totally forgotten the changes until a colleague alerted me by asking, "... shouldn't you be at the Visitor Center about now, Betty?"  It was ten minutes 'til eleven and I was deeply into a questionnaire from Business Insider, an online magazine out of New York --and had been all morning.  Had to abruptly shut down computer, grab flat-hat and dash for the elevator -- hie to the parking lot and take off on the frantic ten minute drive to the Visitor Center where an Oakland book club was waiting in the theater ... phew!

So much for the third person Betty's ability to deal with change.  This was the first morning out and I'd failed miserably.

I arrived out of breath but it only took only a few minutes to climb onto my stool and get wired up and into the stories, so -- as a test -- it's working if somewhat crazily.

Returned to the Civic Center office after the presentation, completed the 4-page single-spaced questionnaire for the magazine, and then headed for home a bit earlier than usual.

Vertigo is now all but gone, and blood pressure back to normal, and -- after witnessing the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina early this morning, my world is far less emotional.  CSPAN's coverage of the wild and robust debate over the threatened removal of all such flags (all sales and exhibitions) from National Park Service sites (except where appropriate to the telling of that history) exposed the very real possibility of another governmental shutdown resulting from Congress's inability to follow the lead of South Carolina in removing that symbol of hate.  There has been a tacking-on of an amendment to the important funding bill for the Armed Forces budget which would have enabled this to happens -- which brought about a raucus shouting session in the House chambers that could not be quelled.  To prevent the Congress from having to go on record by voting in support of a continuation of the Confederate flag controversy, the House voted to send it to committee which essentially will kill the amendment without action. 

This is far from over, but I'm hopeful that we may be finally-- as a nation -- entering an era of  the belated processing of the Civil War -- something that's been festering beneath the surface for more than a century.  Maybe the South will lead the nation in that work, and would that not be ironic?

I believe that we here in Richmond's Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park are well into that dialogue, and we're drawing folks of every race and ethnicity into the conversations.

Given the possibility of another governmental Shutdown ... maybe this is only the beginning of another exciting chapter in our nation's history.

.... and maybe I'm well-placed as a link between then and now -- at a crucial time in our story.

This morning my radio/alarm went off at around six as the NPR male voice was sounding my name ...

... and I'm wide awake with a suddenness that cut through the room like a shiv through warm butter!
"... this morning at 10:30 Forum will re-air from the archives a memorable interview by Michael Krasny with Ranger Betty Reid Soskin of the National Park Service ...".   Without warning or expectation here I was on rotation on All Things Considered.  That announcement was aired several times before breakfast, each time with the same effect.  I really have begun to think of myself in the third person.  Could hardly wait to hear her! 

Yesterday, just as I was about to start my two o'clock program a woman in the front row of our little theater whispered to me that she and her husband had heard the interview on NPR a couple of weeks ago, and that they had driven all the way from Redwood City to hear my talk.  It's so hard to know how to respond to this kind of attention, especially when the anger is so near the surface, and when I'm having such a hard time keeping my emotions in check.  The vertigo is still a problem, so there's a feeling of imbalance that makes my steps unsure and confidence shaky. 

Yet, once the lights are turned up so that the faces, the eyes, are connected with mine, the magic begins -- and the words come ... still ... as if I've been pre-programmed for this precise moment in time ...  as if this is the first time I've spoken these now familiar words... .

This morning I sat alone propped on pillows hugging my knees at 10:30 and listened intently to Michael Krasny's voice as he announced the interview with this "third person," Betty Reid Soskin.  I listened intently and, surprisingly, found myself lost in tears as it ended 30 minutes later.  This time the tears were not from anger, but from somewhere deep inside -- tears of humility and wonder.  I think -- before the interview closed I was hearing my voice from an ego-less state -- hearing myself from somewhere beyond myself -- a warm but raspy voice speaking truth spontaneously and guilelessly.  Speaking of shameful things without shame.  Speaking in a proud voice that was strangely not prideful.

Is this then, what is happening -- the magic?

 

For obvious reasons,  I'm sitting on a powder keg of unspent rage ... .

... and so far it seems harmless enough since it appears to be totally powered by tears, so I burst out in sobs at the slightest provocation, and embarrassment quickly follows.  There are places in my talk that are hard to get through since every time I dip back into the darkness of those years (1942-1945) I become vulnerable and control is difficult to maintain.  But that's part of the cost of indulging Truth, and I've always been willing to pay it.

I suspect that some of it can be attributed to the lingering effects of the concussion, and the dizziness of vertigo that has caused some of my confidence to bleed away from the fear that each step might end up in another fall ... .

The Michael Krasny Forum on NPR has stirred a public response that has increased visitation substantially.  Audiences have doubled and yesterday we had to add a second presentation at three o'clock in order to meet the need.

I've never felt more vulnerable or as filled with rage as I am in this aftermath of the Emmanuel
A.M..E. church killings, or, the re-visiting of the debate over the presence of the Confederate Flag on the grounds of the Capitol.

But my anger was further fueled by the timing of the SCOTUS announcement of the decision regarding same-sex marriage at a time when I was literally sitting at the foot of my bed waiting for the president's eulogy for Senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the 8 others slain in that brutal killing in South Carolina.

Why on earth did they not wait until Monday morning -- traditionally when the last and most important decisions are handed down every year?  Why did they not allow us to complete the mourning process before stepping on it?  There was an incongruity in the entire country bursting into revelry just as we were waiting for the funeral services to begin in South Carolina.  I was hopelessly split since my mind and heart were with both events, and the clashing of emotions was exhausting and schizophrenic!

Then something about it began to dawn as vaguely familiar:

Just two years ago SCOTUS had positioned two critical decisions in competition when they decided against DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and the scuttling of the Voters Registration Act which pitted the LGBT and the African American communities in direct competition for national attention.  The danger of widening the gap between two equality-seeking segments of society was evident.

Intentional?  Coincidental?  Strategic?  Meant to sow the seeds of dissension between two "minority" segments of the society in the interest of the continuance of white privilege?  Keeping the fragmentation in place when we're fast-approaching a time in our social development as a nation, when there will no longer be a racial majority?

It's the same strategy that causes even the so-called wisest among us to continue to refer to our demographics using the term "78% minority" to describe the non-white cohort, or, "... 85% women and minority" when that is as meaningless when some of us are both -- female and non-white."  There is no such things as a 78% minority.  That, friends, is the majority.  The stupid distortions by the manipulation of language is meant to express pure nonsense loudly and constantly enough to dull the senses and hopelessly confuse.

This makes about as much sense as having gone to war in 1942 to "save Democracy with a racially-segregated Armed Forces," which is simply delusional.

Maybe the only appropriate response to such nonsense IS unspeakable debilitating rage!

... but that gets us nowhere, right?

... but it beats packing a gun for retribution.

Maybe those kindly Christian believing survivors in Charleston, South Carolina, were right after all in their almost unbelievable forgiveness of the killer ...

... but forgiveness is still beyond my reach.

Back to the tears.

I really should cut all media until I'm feeling more whole ... .

It occurred to me after listening to the southern defenders of the Right to fly the flag of the Confederacy at the State Capitol that - were I that young man sitting in a cell awaiting the wrath of judgement to come down -- I might be wondering why I'm not being hailed as a hero for saving the nation from the army of the Black America!  He does have his defenders who will declare him mentally ill.   I'm beginning to wonder whether he doesn't represent a growing number of perfectly sane white southerners with lingering smoldering leftover remnants of the Reconstruction period running in their veins.

The rhetoric that includes code language such as, "... we must take back our country ..." coming out of those in Washington's seats of power sends messages that encouraged the tragic scene at Mother Emmanuel.  This has got to refer to the presidency, right?  The hatred of President Obama and the outrage of southern racism is so strong that the "Solid South" is willing to sacrifice everything to prevent what is seen as the rise of black America to full equality.

Yet, there has obviously been a significant change in South Carolina despite all.  Those crowds gathered as mourners have been racially integrated and the obvious warmth of the citizenry holds promise even on that hallowed southern ground.

One would have to be really out of touch to not see the possibility of the obvious, and we've not yet arrived at real democracy -- not yet.

That we're still ready to fight and die for, but are not yet ready to live by its principles. 

I can't recall a time when I've felt greater despair; or as hopeless as I do this day ... . 

I'm not sure that I any longer believe ...

... and as I sit at my computer to try to find words that will help me to understand the merciless slaying  of nine praying people ...  paralysis overcomes my body and my fingers refuse to move ...

My brain goes into dull/normal mode, and -- at some level I know that this has to be -- at least until I can wrap my mind around the horror without bursting into unstoppable hysterical rage.  It will take a few days.  I've stopped watching the news coverage in order to protect myself.

I suppose singing hymns and linking hands serves the same purpose for black congregations in mourning all over the country today, but how long can that be enough? Perhaps my barely-controlled anger serves no good purpose, except maybe to provide a vent in order to preserve what sanity I have left.  Today I'll just try to sleep the pain away.   

It has been several days since the latest chapter in this horrific American nightmare occurred, and -- for the first time -- I'm finding my words scrambled at times when I'm doing my work -- and the tears are so close to the surface that the temptation to just walk away in the middle of a sentence is almost irresistible.  Yesterday's two o'clock presentation was almost impossible to get through ... .

... were it not for the feeling that everyone in that little theater shares the despair and are as close to tears as I am ... but is that enough?  Are there enough of us leaning in the direction of compassion, unity, fairness, equality, to even make a dent in the ignorance and evil that threatens to consume us? 

I'm not sure that the time hasn't come to just admit that we're beyond saving as a nation, and that maybe the madness is overwhelming now, and we're just not redeemable.

Maybe it IS time to hang it up and retire -- leave the mopping up to someone younger whose disillusionment is less profound, and whose hope is still alive.

I'm having a hard time finding mine.

My rage has reawakened, and I simply cannot understand the compassion of those surviving church members who so humbly offered forgiveness to the mindless young murderer ...

... all I can think of are the 4,725 black people who were lynched in this country from the time of the Civil War until 1968.

How on earth is this different ... or is it just another chapter in that ugly unending saga of domestic terrorism?